Portraits
by Izzu
Summary: Series of one-shots revolving the people living in the Hikari Studio
1. Amnesiac Wanderer

az: I had to do it... somewhat. XD

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><p><span>Portraits<span>

1: The Amnesiac Wanderer

Written by Izzu alias honou-no-izumi

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_She kept asking herself what she has been thinking. She should have just taken him to a hospital, or a clinic at least—so that at least she could have had those deep cuts on the forehead and chest tended. It was just like her, to have done it without thinking. Yes, she wasn't even thinking things through before doing this!_

_But somehow, she knew she had to do it. Something was telling her deep inside that she needed to do this. Because earlier, looking at him unconscious with those many onlookers staring at him yet doing nothing—or fearing to be the first person to actually made the first move to help the man—she just snapped. She knew then and there that she needed to protect this man._

Natsumi rose as the door opened to reveal one of her neighbour friend walking out of it. She immediately walked up to him.

"Thanks, Hide-kun. I'm so glad you came to help," she started to say before receiving a hard flick on the head.

"You should be glad that I did. You're lucky that he only needed some stitches to fix him up, why didn't you take him to the hospital?"

Natsumi bit her lips. "Well... I don't want to just... _abandon this guy. I mean... he looked like he had nobody who could've taken care of him..."_

The older man laughed. "Ah well, at least you did seem to be taking care of him good enough. Just don't forget to take him for some check up time by time. That head injury seemed to be very bad."

"I'll remember that," she said before accompanying her old friend out.

It was some time later than her grandfather had gone up to the room to take a look of the man she had found.

"How's the young man, Natsumi-chan?"

Natsumi shrugged. "He still haven't wake up, but then considering his head injuries... that was not so unexpected."

Eijiro nodded slowly before placing a small camera on the side table. "I've fixed the little one, seems it was well cared. Your friend here must have considered it precious." Natsumi looked up to him as the old man placed several prints beside the camera.

"What are those?" she asked as the old man shrugged.

"It's the pictures the young man took. Most of them are ruined, though... but a few survived. Mostly they're pictures of sceneries... but I found this particular one a bit special. I was planning to make a larger copy of this one later and frame it. It would be a wonderful addition to our studio."

Natsumi took the picture from her grandfather before taking a good look at it.

"Yes... it was beautiful," she said softly. Then again, beautiful didn't actually fit the feelings she felt through this picture. It was a sweet feeling; she could sense that the man had taken this picture with love. The picture was of a door, but not just a door. There was someone leaning against it and she could see the reflection of that young man looking towards the girl with longing. That girl must have been a special person.

Natsumi glanced to the man in question. Wonder if that girl knew what happened to this man. Would she worry about him?

xxx

It's been a week, and the man had never wakened since. She had been worried, frantically too. There was a time or two when she had been by his bedside when the man had been tossing and turning over a dream unknown. It surprised her that he hasn't waked up during that time. And don't even mention that few nights when the man had been run with high fever.

Then again it surprised her as well that it took a week for her to find out the man's name. And the camera has been in front of her all the time!

Even then, all of that did not prepare her for what she has now faced at this time. Tsukasa has finally wakened up from his slumber, she should be glad of it but she was not. Tsukasa has lost his memories; it seemed that nothing had remained. Even when she had shown the picture that her grandfather had printed out for him, it had sparked nothing from him. No sign of recognition at all. Her heart ached seeing the look Tsukasa was wearing now.

"Then... w-what... should I do with myself now?" Tsukasa finally spoke again after the long silence.

"You'll stay with us... until you regain your old memory back. After that, it's okay for you to go anywhere you want."

Tsukasa didn't look that convinced. "Are you sure I won't be burdening you guys?"

"No, you won't. We would certainly appreciate your company. It's been a while since we had people living with us," said Natsumi again, reassuring him. She hugged him lightly as she said again. "Don't worry about it."

Several weeks later, Natsumi started regretting what she had said as she chased after Tsukasa halfway across the city.

"Hikari Secret Technique! Laughing Point!" she exclaimed as Tsukasa immediately started rolling down the hill laughing uncontrollably. The sight alone made all that effort of running after him seemed worth it.

Okay, maybe it was not that bad having Tsukasa around living with them.


	2. Rider of Wind

az: I used to have written this draft based on Ride the Wind, but after keeping it unfinished for a long time I scraped it off. And then another muse came and I thought of reusing the muse. Well, haven't you wonder how did that canvas been able to determine their destination? Eijirou can't have really been Shingami Hakase for a long time, and some Gaia Memories do have tendency go on and off even without removing it. See Invisible. So if it's not Eijiro controlling it, who did you think is?

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><p><span>Portraits<span>

2: Rider of Wind

By honou-no-izumi alias Izzu

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Wonder what was it that had waken her up so early, but it did the job. She was sleeping again inside the room that has now been almost officially dubbed as Tsukasa's room. The man had grown to be such a presence in this house, it was as if he had always meant to be here.

Well, in case you're wondering... earlier, Tsukasa had been having another of those dizzy spells. Natsumi had been taking him to see the doctor again to see to his head injury and despite the initial worries, his injuries were almost healed. Even Tsukasa insisted that he was feeling fine but Natsumi was not convinced. There had been several other nights prior when things like this had happened to Tsukasa, and Natsumi often found herself accompanying the man as Tsukasa occasionally forgot who he was or even herself and her grandfather! It hurts her to see him to be that lost with himself, that she wouldn't want to leave Tsukasa's side regardless how minor the illness Tsukasa had. She couldn't do it.

Tonight, Natsumi would have just fallen asleep again if not because she noticed Tsukasa's bed was empty. She stood up immediately. Just as she thought, she was right about staying watch. Where did Tsukasa go now in the middle of the night?

Natsumi slowly found her way downstairs as the search upstairs proved to be vain. Just as she was about to turn on the lights, Natsumi saw Tsukasa's sillouette near the mini studio area on the living room.

"What on earth...?" Natsumi started to say before noticing that Tsukasa was trying to pull on the chain on the canvas backdrop hung at the corner of the room. She frowned. _Why did Tsukasa want to pull on that old thing? _They had rarely needed to change it and it has been a while since they did, that the chain and pulley sistem that aided the mechanism to change the canvas had rusted and stopped moving. So what did Tsukasa wanted to do?

"Tsukasa! What're you doing?" Natsumi exclaimed as she dragged Tsukasa away. She gasped as she noticed Tsukasa's hand had become bloodied after so much attempt at pulling on the chains.

"Oh dear... even grandpa didn't get his hands this bad!" she muttered to herself before finding a first aid kit to treat the hand. She started to scold Tsukasa for being so careless at taking care of himself before noticing Tsukasa's eyes were glazed.

"Tsukasa?" She asked worriedly as she tried to take him back to his room. Tsukasa shook his head in a daze as he continued staring at the backdrop.

"No... I need to go. I can't stay... they're calling for me—I have to go there..."

Natsumi stared at him in surprise. Did Tsukasa recovered his memory a bit? Did he remembered something about his past?

"Tsukasa? Did you remember something? Where did yo want to go? What was it you were looking for?"

Tsukasa shook his head again as he cried, "I don't know. I had to... it's calling at me... but how can I? I can't go through... the door was closed..."

Natsumi blinked. Tsukasa was starting to not making any sense, she was not even sure now if this was just a sleep talk or if Tsukasa was awake and just disoriented. She gently comforted the man before taking him back to his room.

The next morning, Natsumi immediately started to ask Tsukasa again about the incident.

"What're you talking about, Natsumikan? I'm not the kind of person to sleepwalk in the middle of the night. You've been imagining things again..."

Natsumi snapped. "Don't deny it! You had been up last night, see that right hand of yours! If you had been sleeping normally you wouldn't get that. I was the one that bandaged that hand last night!"

"What're you—" Tsukasa gasped as he appeared astonished at the newly bandaged hand, looking as if he had never noticed it before. Natsumi frowned at him. It didn't look like he was faking it, he really did seem as if he did not remember anything that had occurred last night. She had wondered if this was anything that she needed to worry about.

xxx

It has been several days now, and this was the second world they had arrived to ever since that fateful day. Somehow, recaling that night when Tsukasa had been sleepwalking—regardless how many times he had denied it—everything seemed to fit now. Even then, a part of Tsukasa's old self had always known that he needed to continue moving forward. Though, she haven't expected to have themselves literally travelling across many worlds instead of places.

Natsumi turned to look at the canvas backdrop hanging at the center of the wall. Somehow that backdrop now controlled the destination of the world they were heading. Funny how the chains conveniently started to move again once Tsukasa has finished with whatever purpose he was supposed to do in the world that he passed through.

Was this Tsukasa's fate? Then... what was it that had called and guided Tsukasa's path? What would be his final destination be? Would he be able to find the answer he was looking for?

Natsumi recalled the many times she had seen Tsukasa in his vulnerable state, during the times he was not being his aggravating self but just this one lonesome man. That Tsukasa was a pitiable one, the one who was lost without direction... without anything that he could have held to support himself. She remembered that time when Tsukasa had cried before her.

Natsumi smiled, despite herself. Regardless where this path would take him, she would always be by his side. She promised herself that she would accompany Tsukasa in his journey. This feeling had never changed. Even if Tsukasa was meant to travel into places unknown to himself that was like the ever-changing winds that affected the seasons, she would never allow him to ride those winds alone.

Of that, she vowed on him... for his and her own sake.

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><p>Notes: I ended up writing a serious piece. Then again, the original piece had been of an even darker tone as it was set just prior before Movie war and after ep 31. Considering I'm not feeling like wanting to brave myself to rewrite that piece again, I wrote this instead. Perhaps I'll do that later.<p>

Had this idea since Daiki and Tsukasa as I doubt any of the Daishocker actually had any original ability to affect dimension and if they did, it was something they took from Tsukasa.


End file.
